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When Cambridge Poets jam the Photocopier with Poetry: A Guest Post by Malcolm Guite

By Anita Mathias

 

We’re Jammin…’ : a Confession! 

It’s an honour and a pleasure to be invited by Anita to post a ‘guest blog’ here. I’d like to share with you, if I may, some reflections on the ‘genesis’ of a new poem, its first seeds and beginnings, and then flowing from that some thoughts on what it is that a poem, any poem, might be trying to achieve. It’s a story that starts with a confession and takes you on a journey from the apparently ordinary world of an office photocopier, back to a moment of vision in front of a burning bush, a chance to see things anew.

So, first the confession: I am sorry to say that I am responsible for having broken a college photocopier! It happened like this. I was giving a talk about poetry, in particular about how poetry can cleanse and renew our vision, help us see the familiar in a new way, kindle again the hidden light that God put in the hear of all things, and deep in our own hearts, the ‘light that lightens everyone who comes into the world’. Well that was the plan.

As always I was in a hurry and had forgotten to photocopy the poems in advance. Just minutes before the lecture I rushed into the admin office, hoping the kind lady there would help me with the fearsomely complicated photocopier. It’s one of those machines that has so many extra trays, feeders and blinking lights that it looks like a cross between a combine harvester and a spaceship! But the office was deserted; the lady was on her coffee break. In desperation I decided to have a go myself, and just put the sheaf of poetry into a random feeder tray, picked a number, pressed ‘go’, and hoped for the best. Sure enough multiple copies started spewing out the other end, but as I started to gather them, I heard a horrible graunching noise, warning lights flashed, and the whole machine ground to a halt with a clutch of poems halfway in and half way out.
The bell was going for my class! I glanced guiltily around, wrenched as much poetry as I could out of the crippled machine and headed for my lecture. But I had left my jacket in the office and when I crept back to get it afterwards, the door opened, an accusing finger pointed at me and a stern voice said : ‘Your poetry is jamming my machine!’ I was in trouble!

Well I apologised of course, and explained I’d had to rush off, but between us the secretary and I managed to free the jam and remove the crumpled remains of some of my poems from the machine. Just as I was leaving the office I glanced back and noticed that she was unfolding one of the crumpled pages and starting to read…

When I got home and thought about it all two things became clear; first, what a great line of poetry the phrase ‘your poetry is jamming my machine’ would make, why it even scans as a five-stressed line of ‘iambic pentameter’, and second, I owe that Lady something, maybe she would like a poem. The two thoughts coalesced and stirred me on to this:

                                             On being told my poetry was found in a broken photo-copier

 My poetry is jamming your machine

It broke the photo-copier, I’m to blame,

With pictures copied from a world unseen.

My poem is in the works -I’m on the scene

We free my verse, and I confess my shame,

My poetry is jamming your machine.

Though you berate me with what might have been,

You stop to read the poem, just the same,

And pictures, copied from a world unseen,

Subvert the icons on your mental screen

And open windows with a whispered name;

My poetry is jamming your machine.

For chosen words can change the things they mean

And set the once-familiar world aflame

With pictures copied from a world unseen

The mental props give way, on which you lean

The world you see will never be the same,

My poetry is jamming your machine

With pictures copied from a world unseen

Luckily she liked this poem indeed it turned out that a little more poetry was just what she needed in her life, which in a way is what this poem is about.

We get trapped in what we think is humdrum until something or someone opens our eyes and lets us see the wonder around and within us.

Mount Horeb was just part of Moses’ daily commute, in the humdrum dead-end job he had looking after his father-in-law’s sheep until one day it all changed, one of the scrubby little bushes that dot the mountain side to which he had hardly given a second glance, was suddenly lit from within, alive and dancing with a coruscating light of joy and holiness that illuminated the bush and all around it and yet didn’t consume it, just let it continue to be its own newly glorious self. So Moses stopped, took off his shoes on Holy ground, and his life and our lives, changed forever…
The poet Elizabeth Browning said ‘earth’s crammed with Heaven and every common bush ablaze’, and she’s right, if only we had eyes to see. The priest-poet George Herbert put it perfectly in a poem that we sometimes sing as a hymn:

A man that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye

Or if he pleaseth through it pass

And then the heaven’s espy.

Well that’s my confession; they say it’s good for the soul. I’m happy to say that the photocopier got fixed, and last time I was in there I saw my poem had been pinned above it on the office wall!

Born in Nigeria and raised in Africa and Canada, Malcolm Guite is a poet and singer-songwriter living in Cambridge, where he also works as a priest and academic. He is the author of Faith Hope and Poetry (Ashgate 2010, paperback 2012) and has published poems in Radix, The Mars Hill Review, Crux, Second Spring and Christianity and Literature. He is also a singer-songwriter and is currently front man for Cambridge rockers Mystery Train. His CDs The Green Man and Dancing through the Fire are out on Cambridge Riffs and iTunes. www.malcolmguite.com

 Malcolm Guite Image Credit

 

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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